This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (Dec. 6)

There Is A LOT Of Snow Out There. Have You Made Your First Run?

It has started. It’s official. It’s on. Go. 2019-2020 is happening. Now.

We are watching the post-Thanksgiving double-whammy snow storm fall here in New England and contemplating getting out on our xc skis this morning. We know our local ski shop has been jammed this whole past week with people collecting new or newly-tuned skis. There’s a lot of snow up country, and resorts are opening or have been open.

Open for skiing since Nov. 3 this year, the Killington snow making crew pulled off a minor miracle when the resort got ready to hold the Women’s World Cup over the Thanksgiving weekend. Mikaela Shiffrin handily won the slalom and Italy’s Federica Brignone received first place in giant slalom in front of 39,000 spectators, a record breaking crowd. Enthusiasm, much?

This week, we hear from SeniorsSkiing.com correspondent Marc Liebman on his routine for making the first runs of the season. Marc is an analytical guy, and his account of the initial moves are interesting in their focus on his tracks as an assessment of his early-season technique.

PSIA Instructor Pat McCloskey also offers his advice on making those first turns on scraped off, icy conditions.

Some of us are about to make our first turns of this new season very soon, perhaps this weekend. Many probably already have been out and about. What was special about your first outing? What was new? Different? Better?

Seriously folks, the very first turns. What do you do? Do you have a mental picture of yourself or your skis carving through a turn? Do you talk to yourself, give yourself instructions or reminders? (We do. We think, “Athletic Stance” which has meaning for us.) Are you self-conscious? Uncomfortable? Cautious?

We’re curious how you approach the first of thousands and thousands of turns extending far into the spring. Let us know. Add a comment to the Leave A Reply box below.

This Week

Correspondent Don Burch has produced a short video on the recent Boston Ski and Snowboard Expo. Check out the enthusiastic faces and the energy of the crowd in what might be dubbed the official kick-off of the season around New England. FYI, this is the last year the Expo will be held at Boston’s World Trade Center and produced by Bernie Weichsel’s BEWI Productions. Next year, the show will be at the Hynes Auditorium and SIA will manage the whole show. Thanks to Bernie for decades of hosting what has become a national tradition.

Salt Lake City correspondent Harriet Wallis reports on last season’s monster traffic jams in Little Cottonwood Canyon, a two-lane road leading to four prominent resorts. This season, the problem has been recognized and solutions are being implemented. The jams seem to correlate with the flood of multi-resort passes that everyone seems to be using. Cause and effect?

Our Mystery Glimpse this week is a racer who became an emerging ski industry notable. We reveal the location of the “first T-bar” in a New England state.

Finally, Herb Stevens, the Skiing Weatherman, brings us regional forecasts, based on his analysis of this week’s weather picture.

Occasionally, we publish a “Snow In Literature” piece to remind our readers there is more to winter than snow sports. This week, we offer Robert Frost’s classic “Stopping By Woods On A Snow Evening”. So, why does the person in the sleigh have miles to go before he sleeps?

Thanks for reading SeniorsSkiing.com, the only online magazine for senior snow sports enthusiasts. Please tell your friends. Remember, there are more of us every day, and we aren’t going away.